Clarity : The Quiescent Soul
by CChan
Summary: Kouichi x Kouji, Takuya x Kouji. Character deaths. "I guess that’s what everyone’s been brought up to think, that they’re invincible. Nothing serious ever happens to them, oh no, something always happens to someone else."


**Title**: Clarity : The Quiescent Soul   
**Author**: CChan  
**Couples**: Kou1x2, Takuya x Kouji.   
**Note**: This idea...has been COMPLETELY OVERDONE. I just felt like writing it since I'm depressed over all things concerning college. And I'm sick, although I have three important tests on the same day, come Tuesday. I think I have that new respiratory virus. X_X;   
Character death. Shounen-ai in Kouji's POV. Evanescence's "Bring Me to Life" and Linkin Park's "Somewhere I Belong" are pretty inspiring. O_O Plus the lovely hail and rain we've been having. XD  
**Disclaimer**: Check profile. 

_When your heart is in your dream, no request is too extreme. - Jiminy Cricket_

It's a Sunday morning. And it's raining.

Such a cold rain it is. I'm dressed in long-sleeves, but there's so much water that I'm soaked already, my hair plastered annoyingly over my face. Don't remember how long I've been standing here. What is this place anyway? I've never seen a garden like this before. There are no trees for me to find shelter under. Instead, the entire place is littered with bushes; bushes that tower over me, even though I'm standing, and that are dotted with flowers the size of my fist. I feel like I'm drowning deep in the eight feet end of a pool of flowers.

Out of curiosity, I pick a blossom shaped like a lily, red with white vertical stripes. I must have been careless; I accidentally crush some of the petals. They feel and make a crunching sound like an egg under my grasp, and blood wells from the cracks. It smells like maraschino cherry sauce.

A dream? Sometimes I can tell when I'm dreaming. But for this I'm not sure. I'd never had this dream before, I think. Don't remember any.

Then, could this be a part of the Digital World we'd never been in? 

Whatever. Who cared if it was either? I'm here and I want to leave. I'd promised Takuya, Junpei, and the others I would meet them somewhere today. Sighing to myself, I drop the flower to the ground and watch it melt into the soil. A flower, identical to the one I'd just killed, blooms rapidly in a bush on my left; but this one smells faintly of roasted apples. 

This garden is amazing, in an eerie sort of way, and it's creeping me out. I begin walking in the hopes that I'll end up some place. There has to be some water source nearby at least - these flowers couldn't survive on rain alone...unless it rains all the time? No, that's stupid, this place isn't flooding... So with water, there is the possibility of a town or something nearby. 

Well, at least it's peaceful here. It's actually a nice place to be caught in, despite the rain. The soil isn't so wet that it sucks in my sneakers, and, kudos to the rain for once, there are no insects pestering my ears. If I think warm thoughts, even being wet doesn't bother me anymore.

In an inconceivable flash, I'm facing a small waterfall and surrounded by mist. There had been no sound of a small roar that indicated I was approaching one, yet I'm not surprised. Something in me just knew it was there. Maybe this really is a dream after all. 

Something in me also knew to look into the pool of water, but even as I fall to my knees near the edge, I can't see the bottom. I feel as though I'm standing on the edge of a diving board and staring down death in the face, in the form of 20 feet of water beneath me...except that the water reflected solid silver, it wasn't see-through. It was as if where the land met the water dropped into a gaping abyss and no one would uncover this unless someone stuck a foot in and couldn't feel soil beneath them. 

Was this just a trick of the eyes? If I stepped in, would I be able to see my legs beneath me? Did I dare to try?

As Takuya likes to say recently, "Hell yeah!" I think I'm hanging around him too much, he's rubbing off of me. 

Plopping down on a patch of wet grass, I peel off my wet sneakers and socks, laying them carefully next to each other. Then I dip my foot cautiously into the water. In a matter of seconds, as if waiting for this moment unbeknownst to me, something slick erupts from the tranquil surface and grabs me by the ankle. 

As it drags me in, I close my eyes tightly, on instinct, feeling warm water immediately attack my nose and ears. It really feels like a sauna in here. 

Stupidly, the first thing I think is, _Hrmmm... what?_ Not the most significant or interesting words I've ever said in my life...

My mind feels as if it had been running in circles for the past 100 years, and it doesn't stop until someone grabs me by the shoulders. I mean, really _grabs_, as if I am either a life that the person could suck out through his palms or something that the person abhors and wants desperately to push away. I open my eyes without thinking, to see my attacker, and try to position my body in the murky water into a fighting stance, as if I were able to.

It's me.

I mean, it is me, but it isn't me at the same time. For one thing, I don't have scales. Or gills. 

By the time I register that _What the...This other me is a merman?_, along with the fact that my eyes don't sting and I don't have to breathe in this warm water, he's put his face only two inches from my own, looking at me slyly. I try to move away, but he has me in a stronghold. I'm getting really uncomfortable with how his tail slaps through the water, creating a lot of bubbles, and how he digs his hip into mine...

As if there is something about my face he appreciates (although he is me), he kisses me suddenly, lightly on the mouth. His lips feel strangely bumpy, yet slick at the same time, like a snakeskin, and I pull away. All I can feel in his lips is an unsatisfied craving, some deep hidden lust that will never go away unless he's taken me completely. Although that doesn't make sense, I don't want to be feeling this right now. For now, he shrugs easily, wheeling his body around and swimming somewhere as he pulls me along with him. 

I try to pull away, but he's stronger than me. I try to speak, but I can't. I feel as if the water is really a muzzle, locking my jaw shut. And he's giggling at how foolish I look, he glances at me through the corners of his aqua, red-tinted eyes, his longer ponytail trailing behind him like a dark cloud (I have shorter hair now). As I hear him giggle, I shudder. Do I sound like that to other people? 

We stop at a place that looks exactly like the spot we left, but he says playfully, "We're here, we're here, your destined place." God, I sound...weird...

Swimming under me, he grabs me by the butt and hoists me upwards. I twitch in shock as he has no reservations of sneaking a pinch on my ass, but by then my head had already broken through water, and I'm blinded by a searing light. 

"Minamoto-kun!" A shout rings around me, and something whacks me squarely on the forehead. 

"Nnngh?" I open my eyes and find myself in my former high school English class. Their faces are blurred, but I know that all my fellow classmates are staring at me, amused. My teacher's face and ears are what I see with clarity, and they're red. I swear, I can hear my mermaid-self laughing, but when I look around, I can't find a single drop of water. Instead, I'm sitting in my squeaky assigned chair, in a dry school uniform. A long piece of chalk rolls under my desk. 

"How many times do I have to get you to pay attention in class, Minamoto-kun?" Yamata-sensei sighs heavily, as he rummages through the teacher's desk for another piece of chalk. "Really, this class is important for you, you'll never know when the English language can come in handy in your career." 

"I'm sorry," I mutter, confused. This dream was turning out to have no direction, really. All I've done so far was walk around a garden and swim underwater with an evil, horny version of myself. I want to leave, but how do you get yourself to wake up from a dream?

"Since you seem so confident that you know everything in English, as you've fallen asleep, I'd like you to read page 319 in our textbook." 

Shit, I think, as I flip slowly through the book. I had graduated from high school years ago. But the way my dreams are going, it looks like I am going to be stuck in school the rest of my life, damn it. 

As always, the bell is my savior. It resounds through the classroom just as I am getting to "Susan was." 

"Tomorrow, Minamoto-kun," Yamata-sensei warns, before I rush out of the room. Even though this dream is just something from the past, those words still send chills through me. 

"Oi, Minamoto-sempai," someone dashes behind me to catch up. I remember that his name is Brian. He's a sophomore. "Key Club is canceled today, so we get to go home early." 

"Eh, Key Club?" I ask, trying to remember what that club had been for exactly. "Why?"

Brian gives me a weird look. "Because of the rain? We've been having a lot of bad weather if you haven't noticed, sempai. Everyone wants to go home early today."

I nod like I understand. Something in the back of my head is nagging at me, kicking at my brain and screaming that it was something important. Something about Brian and Yamata-sensei was important. "Of course. See you later."

Brian grins widely at me before he bows and leaves. Really, the boy thought of me as an idol, although I have no clue how that idea had manifested in him in the first place. 

_Had manifested..? Past tense?_

As I watch Brian run off on his short legs, I remember. I remember the reason why Brian had seemed so familiar to me after these years, even though I forgot almost everyone else's names in my high school. 

It was a major incident that people still talked about. I wasn't there, but I heard it from some friends that were. On a particular school trip, when juniors and seniors could sign up to go visit certain universities during the break, Brian was able to go because one of the guidance counselors was related to him. She, as his aunt, thought it was a good thing for him to gain this sort of experience early in life. The entire event was pretty dull; the limited 250 students, not including the adult chaperones, stayed at a reserved hotel, visited various universities scattered around Tokyo. 

Just as they had exited the last university, just as the bus driver in the fourth bus began to start up and head for the highways, Brain suddenly started to have fits. He frothed at the mouth, and he was clutching his head as he tried to speak. His eyes were twisted to the back of his head. 

Everyone around him freaked out. His aunt was in a different bus, so chaos ensued as they decided whether they should stop the buses for her to come, or pedal towards a hospital. 

But then it was too late. He had collapsed in his seat, appearing for all the world unconscious. No one had realized he had died that instant of a brain tumor that had slowly been eating away at him unchecked and unseen until an autopsy was performed. His family had no comments; it had been common fact that Brian's family was too poor to have him checked by a doctor often. His aunt had transferred schools. 

Yamata-sensei had died years after I'd left. He was shot by someone, just because he was at the wrong place at the wrong time. I'd read it in a newspaper. 

If they were dead, what were they doing in my dream? I had never dreamed of them, even when they'd died. 

As I walk through the deserted school hallways towards the front door, a possibility occurs to me. 

_Could I have somehow... stumbled into the afterlife in my dreams?_

In answer, rain pops out of the sky and pours down on me in buckets. I backtrack quickly, and stand underneath the school entrance, waiting out the rain. You'd think I'd at least get some sort of warning when it starts raining like that, hmph. Wasn't _I_ supposed to be in control of my dream? 

But then again...It was like...like, déjà vu, I realized.

There was a day when it had rained just like this, and I had been standing at the school entrance just like so. 

The weathermen had said in the morning that it wouldn't rain until much later in the day, and I had estimated the time to when I'd already returned home from school. With my luck though, it started raining in the middle of the school day, and it just wouldn't let up. None of my friends were as stupid as I was to not bring an umbrella and a jacket, and since none of them lived near my neighborhood, they couldn't offer to walk home with me. 

It was one of those days when Kouichi would meet up with me after my club so we could walk together. Since his public school ended later than mine, we thought this was the best arrangement, that he'd meet me every so often and we'd do something together after school. 

"You loved those times, didn't you?"

I almost yell. The mermaid version of myself had somehow sprouted legs and was leaning on the wall next to me. He's wearing an overlarge version of the clothes I had worn when I was eleven, complete with the bandana. I think the bandana is so tacky now, why did I ever start wearing it? 

"What are _yooou_ doing here?" I sputter, eyeing the arms folded across his chest nervously. I don't want to be seduced by _myself_ again. 

He ignores me, in the attitude I'm familiar with. "I mean, you loved _him_. You said his name every day at least ten times, breathed it actually, panted his name in your sleep because you wanted to do the sticky sticky hotness with him, and even bought a bookmark because the anime character on it looked almost like him. Of course you would love hanging out with him."

Whenever Takuya was angry with me, he always ended our arguments with "You should try spending an hour with yourself!" Now I knew what he meant. And what the hell was that mermaid part of me about anyway? 

"Ugh, just, ruin the contemplative mood I had, why don't you," I grumble, pushing him. "Go away!" 

My hands go right through him; he's started to fade on me, smirking at me evilly. My knees land hard on the gravel, and I push myself back up again. My irritation dissolves as the rain only beats down harder, wherever it can catch me. 

Sou. That day, club was canceled and I'd ventured out into the rain only ten minutes after school closed. I was immediately soaked when I had turned the corner, and was cursing myself heatedly, until someone grabbed my ponytail from behind.

"This," the person said with deadly emphasis, "is a hair-up! Don't move unless you want your precious ponytail shorn by my Shears of Doom! Muahahahaha!" 

"Kouichi," I said calmly, my shoulders relaxing. "Do you never get tired of saying that?"

"Nope," he replied simply, smiling as he pulled me into a backwards embrace, despite my being wet. His smile always made me smile, he had that effect on me. "What the hell are you doing out here anyway? I arrive at your school and find your club was canceled. Why didn't you call me?"

"I forgot to recharge the batteries on my cell," I said, scrambling to find some room underneath his umbrella. Damn it, it was cold. "Why are you here so early anyway?" 

"Aw, ahem, I kinda," he muttered quickly, "cutschoolandhungaroundyours." Then he said brightly, "But that's okay, because I get to play your knight in shining gold armor and now you're not as completely wet as you would have been without me." 

"And believe me, I'm grateful," I said dryly. Then more seriously, "Are you skipping school because of that fight you'd gotten into?" 

Only recently, Kouichi had gotten beaten up by some people in his school. I couldn't tell who did it, and for what reason; he refused to talk to me about it. Even some of his classmates were closed- mouths. 

Like now, he wiped away the water streaming down my face with a tissue and changed the subject. "Wow, it's pouring today. I'm sorry you had to get wet."

"Kouichi!" I grabbed his arm tightly. That wasn't the answer I'd wanted to hear. 

He sighed and pulled from my grasp. "I just think family is more important than school, alright?"

I could very well hear the hidden meaning behind those words..._ You're important to me, more important than anything_...

But I always read too much into things. He couldn't have meant what I was thinking, he had a girlfriend only a year ago. In the end, everything was just in my head. 

"I'm flattered," I began, "but you shouldn't..." 

Seeing me shivering, he grabbed for my hand and shoved them into his jacket pocket. And effectively cut off my tirade about him not being successful in life if he didn't graduate. Hmph. The bastard. "C'mon, let's hurry up and get out of here, I heard the rain's only going to get heavier."

I couldn't help but stare at his pocket, where our hands were laced together, then back up at him. My anger had dissipated in my confusion. 

_Kouichi?_

It was on the tip of my tongue...I wanted to ask him what he thought he was doing, that he would get wet if he stayed as close as he did beside me, but... I was too embarrassed. And elated, at the same time. This was the first time I'd been this close to him. He was my twin, so we had the same features, but looking at him up close like this, I couldn't help but think that he looked different from me, he looked so handsome... 

_I hope he can't hear my heartbeat through this rain...it seems louder than the rain, too loud. _

"Ah...you still have that ring I gave you?" Kouichi's smooth voice interrupted my thoughts. 

"Wha? Oh this..." I looked down and realized that the silver ring I wore on a chain around my neck was bouncing on my wet clothes with each step. It was a birthday present from Kouichi eight months ago, when my father thought we would have to leave Japan due to his work. Both of us had thought it was a funny thing back then too, I had gotten him the same ring without either of us knowing it. They each had the same inscription written on the inside of the ring. _Zutto isshoni itai..._

I don't have to ask if he has his too. I can feel the cool metal band underneath my fingers. 

Another pause, and then, "Kouji...I guess going to the arcades today is out of the question, eh?"

Broken from my reverie again, I blushed and stammered, "Ah...w-we can still go...I mean..." I was sure he could hear my heartbeat now, he had such an insightful expression on his face...

"Let's go to your house," he suggested, squeezing my hand. "I don't want you getting sick." 

He looked so serious as he said that. I felt something like hope surge through me. 

"I won't get sick," I found myself saying, "it's like fate that you came when you did." 

He flickered. "Fate?" 

"Yea," I said. I felt the need to expand on my point as we walked. "I mean, like a good coincidence. You came to meet me almost the exact time I left for school. And, in the Digital World, we met for the first time and got to know each other better than we could have in the Real World. It all seems so neatly arranged and..." 

"Intertwined," he interrupted, finishing my sentence. We've been doing that a lot lately. "Our lives, they feel that way, don't they?" He sighed as he looked ahead, staring at the bit of gray sky visible from under his umbrella. Rapidly, I felt dumb. I guess I shouldn't have said anything. "I recognize that too. But I'm not sure if I believe in fate itself..." 

"I-I guess it is kind of weird to believe in those kinds of things," I said, blushing this time in mortification. _But I'd meant what I said..._

I don't remember what we'd talked about after that, just that I couldn't dislodge the feeling of self-disappointment from my stomach. I felt somehow like I'd messed up and disgruntled Kouichi. 

I invited him into the house like I always did, this time for a change of clothes, as I had gotten him wet. But he refused, like always. I guess he wasn't comfortable meeting our dad after all these years. Really, he acted as if he had "boyfriend-jitters"... wondering if he would make a good impression on my parents. But, I was just reading too much into things again...

My hand already missed his warmth as I opened the door with my keys. This time, I made him wait. Today was my stepmother's Bake Day, when she made various baked goods to sell at our local church, and I wanted Kouichi to have some. While I asked her to wrap some up in foil, I also searched for one of my thicker sweaters (blue), and offered them both in a neat pile to Kouichi's surprise. I hoped I didn't get them too wet, I hadn't changed out of my own clothes yet. I'd left a wet trail all over the house too, I'd have to wipe that away later. 

I wanted to laugh out loud at him, his eyes looked as though they couldn't get any wider. But that feeling quickly changed to panic when he looked as though he would hug me silly, sweater, brownies, and all. "No, the brownies, you'll crush the brownies!" 

The smart thing would have been to put both in a bag, and this occurred to me just a couple of seconds later. Hurriedly I reached for two plastic ones placed in a pile next to the door, thankful that my stepmother always put them there so she could take some with her whenever she went out shopping. She always complained that the supermarket never insured the bought products so much with their new bags. In this case, it didn't make me look too much of an idiot. 

Damn it, Kouichi, you always make me feel light-headed when I'm around you...

He didn't attempt to hug me again when the bag was safely in his grasp. Instead, he kissed my cheek, almost desirously. His chapped lips grazed my skin, but it filled me with more intense warmth than my hand ever had previously. 

I planned to never wash that cheek ever again, but he didn't have to know that. 

"Thank you." He looked significantly into my eyes as he'd said this. I must have been sporting the same redness as he was. 

I licked my lips and swallowed. _I'm going to do it, I'm going to say that I love him once and for all...!_

"Kouji," he interrupted me. "I'm sorry about what I'd said earlier, I think I should make myself clearer." That serious look came upon his face again, along with...shyness? That stopped me abruptly, I became all ears. "I like the coincidences that occurred today...that I came to your school early when it rained unexpectedly... and you didn't have an umbrella with you..." 

I looked at him almost in disbelief, before I was able to stutter out, "I-I like today's coincidences too! I'm really glad you found me." 

He gave me a smile, a wide one, before I watched him leave. My heart felt as if it were brimming. He turned every so often and waved, as though he couldn't believe I was still there. Don't worry Kouichi, I don't plan to leave this spot for a long while now. 

That was the last time I got to talk to Kouichi. Two days later, they found him in school, lifeless. His cause of death wasn't because of some major accident. There weren't any drunk drivers or maniacal killers with knives involved. I sometimes wish they were, at least there would have been some twisted meaning behind his death. I mean, whenever people asked me about it, I could always put the blame on the stupidity of people. 

No, he was dead because he had tripped and fell, the officials had said. Some classmates of his were looking for him after school and had finally found him sprawled on the bottom of a thirty-five step staircase, his neck snapped in two. The place where they had found him was unpopular, where the school gangs liked to hang out and where everyone avoided. No one knew why he was in a place like that to begin with. 

Tripped and fell? Shattered his neck when his head hit the ground? Bullshit. He was _pushed_ down, Kouichi would not do something stupid like let himself be killed, he adopted some fast reflexes. But they couldn't prove anything, nothing at all.

If he had been shot, if he had been sliced with a knife, God forbid, forensics specialists could have deduced from what gun the bullet had been shot from, what knife had killed him, and would have traced those items to whoever they belonged to. They would have been able to find the murderer. But whoever the bastard was, he was smart. Or just stupidly lucky. The specialists found light oil grease on his clothes, some primer from guns, but it was such a little amount that they could have belonged to anyone who owned a motorcycle or a gun. Kouichi could have just accidentally shoved past a gang member and gotten the stuff on his clothes. 

The police didn't have neither the time nor the patience to study a case that could very well have been an accident. There just wasn't any damn proof they could follow. 

I had been walking towards the school with Takuya at the time. We were both worried why Kouichi refused to answer whenever I called him after school. When I saw the ambulance, I didn't think the trouble pertained to me. That's what almost everyone's been brought up to think, I guess, that they're invincible. Nothing serious really ever happens to them, oh no, something always happens to _someone else_. I'd thought that way too until I learned the horrible truth, known as reality. 

The paramedics had already taken away the body, but I snuck past the cops guarding the area while Takuya distracted them. God, I wish I hadn't, I wish I hadn't been so determined to see the place where he'd died, just so I could prove to myself that it was some sick elaborate joke, that everyone was wrong and Kouichi would pop up somewhere and laugh at me any minute. He'd always liked to make me feel worried, he said I looked adorable when my brows were furrowed. 

I could see the large stain of blood painted on the metal, dried to black now, he'd been dead for six hours. Someone had thoughtfully outlined where his body had been with chalk, and as I stood there, I felt as if I could see every detail, as if I had been there with his friends when they'd found him. I could even imagine as far back as when he had fallen, I felt as though I could feel the shadows of his movements teasing the corners of my eyes. 

And God, my brain, my brain just wouldn't let it go...

I could see it all, see it through my eyes; how the blood matted the back of his hair, how his clothes and bookbag were splattered with blood drops, his eyes staring at me through an endless blue cloud, through the blood on his face, with a damn blank expression, the blood, the blood was everywhere, and his damn expression just wouldn't go away, it's annoying me, stop looking at me like that, stop that, just _stop it_ and Look at me, Really look at me, damn it, don't you recognize me? You _do_ recognize me. You're a really Bad Actor Kouichi, that blood looks so fake, like something you buy from a costume shop, say something

Agh - How did I get out of there? I don't know. I think I either screamed or passed out, even though I was trying hard to hold onto my consciousness, not go hysterical. Maybe Takuya helped me out of there. I remember just waking up and realizing I was in my bed. I thought maybe it had all been a horrible dream, but the looks on my dad's and stepmother's faces when I walked into the kitchen made my stomach shrivel and disappear. 

I was told by them that I had been asleep for more than 35 hours. If I had continued sleeping for another day, they were determined to take me to a hospital. My head hurt, my stomach demanded food, but every time I bit into something, I felt like throwing up. I still ate though, somehow chewed through food that suddenly felt stringy and dry. 

My parents kept me away from school for several weeks, even though it was my last year in high school and I should have been studying for university exams. Takuya came to my house almost every day with study books, but I never felt like studying. We'd often end up arguing and he would rush out in a huff, but he always came back the next day. And he always forgot the names I had called him the day before. 

Even later, I realized that Kouichi had called me about an hour before he was killed. He had called me on my cell before my calculus class started, but he hadn't said anything that warned me something was wrong. Called to wish me good luck on my test, he said. If I failed, he said he really would cut my hair off. I'd just laughed and said I would see him later, my teacher had arrived. 

Kouichi, do you think I'm a bad brother? I should have been more aware that something was wrong, I'm your twin for Chrissakes. I should just _know_ when something has happened to you. Back then, while I was taking the test, I had felt a small lurch in my stomach, like I was falling through my chair and crashing through the floor, but then I had just attributed it as nerves. Calculus had always been a subject I was horrible on, and I needed a high grade to keep up my average. Was that my twin sense shouting at me that you were in trouble? Or am I just thinking too much into it again, just finding excuses to explain to myself how I should have paid more attention to you? 

If it was my special sense, then fucking hell, I'd ignored it. I'd ignored it for the last time. What is _wrong_ with me?

Even more importantly, why didn't you tell me that something was wrong? I could have run out of school that minute, met up with you, tried to help you with your problem? _Why didn't you tell me what was wrong?_

Why do you always think about my happiness before yours? That's supposed to be my job too! I'm supposed to be sticking up for you too, I'm not just your _otouto_ who you always have to keep in the dark just so I wouldn't have to worry about what you're dealing with. 

I blame myself. I've been selfish, never asking you what's up. If I was considerate like you, I would have wanted to listen to your problems every day like you did for me. 

I thought we'd have so much time together. I thought...there would be a day when I'd finally confess and you'd feel the same, and we'd live together all our lives. We'd grow old together. Even if you rejected me, I still never imagined that you wouldn't be a significant part of my life. 

I should have asked at least once, let you know that I cared for you. God, don't you understand, I _loved_ you, I _should_ have asked! And look at how I took your life for granted instead. 

But even so, why couldn't you have been selfish for once and let me tear my hair out in worry, let my hair grow white from stress over you? I'm just your younger brother, but I wanted to protect you so much, just like you did for me... 

Speaking of my hair, I cut it the day after you'd died. I was going insane then, I was thinking of ways that would get you back. Practically everyone had a heart attack when they saw me, especially my parents and Takuya. And my real mother, when she saw me at the funeral. I looked just like you. Hahaha, isn't that a riot? Hahahaha. Are you happy Kouichi? See, I cut my hair, just like you'd always joked about. Come back to me, laugh at me all you want and say how hot I look now, just come back. 

I don't remember how the funeral went. I remember wanting to go home, but both my real parents held onto my hands throughout the service. It's funny, isn't it Kouichi, they came together at last because you died. It's dreadfully funny. 

Why? Why did _you_ have the die? There were so many places we had planned to go together, so much I wanted to tell you...but I'm not Junpei. I don't go showing my emotions to people, even if everything indicates that they don't like me back. God, no matter how many times I want to, it's just not me. 

...Can I see you here? 

I straighten up, and quickly scan the area that looks so much like my world. The rain has stopped in my reminiscing, and the sky is growing lighter every second, as if it's on fast forward on the All-Mighty VCR. If this was the afterworld, I can see you here, right? 

Cautiously, I step out from the entrance, half expecting Rain from Nowhere to fall on me again. When a bird chirps encouragingly in my direction, I take another few steps, and now I'm walking, no, jogging, as fast as I can to where I remember your place was. Your complex when we were teenagers, I remember the path there well. It's etched in my memory as much as you are. 

I'll definitely find you here. 

Like the time with the waterfall, I suddenly find myself standing in front of where your condominium should be, without feeling as though I've walked for very long. It was as though my desire to see you melted into my dream and helped me get to you faster. 

But something's wrong. There's only a door here, with no inscription of your family name anywhere. I can see the cherry blossom trees that grew behind your once existent building when I peer behind the door. There aren't even any cars here, not the emerald one you liked to drive whenever you felt angry, not even the scratched white one our mother had. 

Am I in the right place?

The door's open, I realize, as I find the courage to place a hand on the knob. Swallowing, I twist the knob and push the door inside. 

I...I'm afraid as I listen to the low creak of the door echo in my ears. 

Because the door opens up right into your room. 

The bed is neatly made, the books on the desk are stacked in a nice pile, and the dirty clothes that need to be laundered are in a small basket hidden from view, but it feels lived-in. The place is full of greens and reds just like I remembered it. 

And you're on the bed, lying on your stomach, reading a book. Your appearance hasn't changed at all from when you were seventeen, and I'm glad that time has somehow reversed in my dream, as I'm seventeen here also, back in that fated year when I lost you. I can almost pretend that time has never passed, that it's just two ordinary days after we'd met under the rain. 

But reality and what I'd like my life to be are never the same. It's dangerous for me to think this way and dwell too much in the past. 

You look so relaxed, so different from the horrible images of your death that had been plastered all over my brain and wouldn't come off no matter how hard I scrape away. And you're smiling at me, God, I miss how you smiled at me. I smile back, because as always, I can't help it. 

I'm trying to suppress an enormous feeling from exploding inside me while I'm smiling at you. 

And I'm failing. I know I'm failing, because I'm crying. _I've found you this time. God, it's really you. It really really is you._

"There's something I want to say to you," I grab you by the hands hurriedly, afraid I'll wake up any minute now and I won't be able to say anything. I feel metal, and realize you still have the silver ring placed permanently on your middle finger. 

You sit up and just look at me. There isn't a trace of question or worry on your face, you just look at me, waiting. 

There are a lot of things I want to say to you, to ask you. Like, why did you die? Who killed you? Do you miss us, do you miss me? Don't you know how much we're suffering? I miss you. I've been suffering; I guess I still am now. 

I want to tell you that our real mother has gotten a decent position in her job after all her dedicated years of work. That my family has a child, we have a little sister now. That Tomoki's just won first place in a national art contest with his drawings of us in our Beast-Hybrid forms. That Junpei and Izumi were on-again, and Junpei's a chef with his own cooking show, with Izumi working part-time as his assistant.

But for now... for now, I'll say the most important thing. 

"I want to say to you that," I say in a rush, "I liked you a lot. No, no, that's not it..." 

I twist my tongue, trying to form the words I always have trouble saying. "I was...I lo-ove you. I...I was really in love with you!" 

And the tears pour as I've finally said what I've been meaning to say all this time. You continue to smile at me, not saying a word. Even as my vision blurs with tears, which I don't want to wipe away as I'll lose touch of your hands, I can feel the warmth emanating from your smile...saying so many things to me all at once...

And I woke up, my eyes greeted by a soccer team poster on the ceiling above me which I've learned to tolerate. 

The sun is streaming in through the curtains... it must be around 10:30 am. Even though the curtains blocked out most of the intensity of the morning light, I could still make out our clothes strewn all over the floor from last night. Almost all of the drawers of his wardrobe are opened with red and green jerseys hanging out haphazardly. Next to it, my own cabinet is closed, without even a speck of dust on its surface. It looked too neat and steely, the only neat and steely thing that stood out in this messy room plastered with FIFA posters and other soccer memorabilia. 

What an incredible dream it was. I sat up in bed and touched my forehead. It felt cool while the rest of my body was warm and shaking slightly. 

But could it really have been a dream? I felt relieved inside, as if I were finally able to shove those eleven years of dead weight and regret off my shoulders. I felt free and light-hearted for the first time since what had felt like forever. 

I'd like to think it wasn't just a dream...Kouichi-niichan. _I'm so glad that you're well up there... wait for me... _

He stirred besides me, looking at me with one inquiring sleepy eye; amazing, I must have made a lot of movement to have woken him up. "Something wrong Kouji?"

Something wrong? No, something was absolutely right for a change. I didn't complain as he reached forward to drag me back down towards the bed. Breakfast could wait; there were more important things at the moment that needed my attention, like this beautiful person next to me. 

I smiled at him; not the tremulous one I had thrown at him last night, not the wide one edged with feral intentions such as his. It was a genuine smile, one that shone from my sincere heart. "No, nothing's wrong. I just..."

I just can't help but kiss him with every feeling I have. He had put up with my tearful hysterics and my moody anger for so long, ever since my other half had died. No, it had been farther than that, all the way back to when we were just kids. Sometimes he fought back, but never once tried changing who I was, just accepting me and my quirks. He was an angel that I regularly felt I didn't deserve, yet I didn't want to give him up. 

He wasn't at all like my other half, but he was enough to overflow my once hollow heart.

_Do you see my light? Can you feel the love that's burning within it? I want you to see it and keep it always tucked inside your own heart..._

He doesn't hesitate to answer, to return my kiss, my hidden plea for us to always be together that I could never express voluntarily in words. Instead, he puts our foreheads together when we finish, waiting for an explanation.

"I love you, Takuya." It feels easy to say those words now, just easy enough that I don't balk in the middle. I just wish there was a specific tone, a specific level of intensity that could convey this idea to him properly. Whenever I say it, it never feels enough to completely describe how much I feel for him. 

He stroked the back of my head, tangling fingers in my long strands of hair. I had grown my hair out a little after it was cut, but never kept it at the same length as when I was younger. I could tell he was confused by my sudden outburst, but doesn't question it. "I love you too Kouji."

The alarm went off then, in an annoying mechanical beep, and I turned around to switch it off. The charred silver ring on a matching necklace that hung on the wall next to the nightstand didn't escape my eyes. 

"Kouji?" Takuya asked, embracing me again. 

"Mm," I asked, burrowing my face into his chest like a cat. If I could, I would have been purring. I could feel him smiling.

"Happy birthday," he just says, and we both settle down to sleep peacefully in each other's arms. 

It's a magnificent Sunday morning. And now, it's raining.

_

I think we dream so we don't have to be apart so long. If we're in each others dreams, we can be together all the time. - Hobbes, from Calvin and Hobbes

_

* * *

Confused? I've found I have a tendency to do that to people whenever they read my writing. @_@ Think the characters are OOC? Want to barf all over my work and throw sticks with protruding nails at me, tar, feather, and oust me from the fanfiction community? Please review then, I feed off of them, good or bad. ^_^ 

Here are some of the meanings behind the dream that I'd found in Dream Dictionary by Tony Crisp, just after I'd finished writing this. They probably really mean something entirely different than what this book says, but eh, I'm not a dream analyst. Some of this actually pertains to what I wanted to get across, wow. XP 

**colors**: In many dreams where color predominates, there are usually strong feelings...Where a dreamer is largely intellectual or out of touch with their feelings, the color would stand in the place of the emotion, instead of alongside it.

**cold**: Held-back emotions, especially fear; sometimes connected with feelings of death. 

**garden**: Your inner feelings and imagination; the soul/ soil or psyche or the personal attributes and characteristics; the area of growth or change in you; what you are trying to cultivate in yourself.

**many flowers growing**: feelings of well-being and relaxation.

**lily**: as it grows from the mud, through water to the air and light, it sometimes represents wholeness and growth, showing our connection with the universal as we develop individually.

**red flower**: love; passion. 

**silver**: Old, precious or sad memories or intuitions.

**deep water**: the deeps of one's inner life. 

**fish, sea creatures**: When we decide to speak or move, unconscious physical and psychological impulses and processes produce the response. Fish often depict these deeply unconscious processes. The fish can therefore represent something arising from within that could be nourishing or threatening, depending on the dream...The fish may be the wisdom we have not yet brought to consciousness, regarding our personal journey in time and eternity.

**swimming underwater**: taking awareness into what was unconscious; looking within; seeing what goes on under the surface in relationships, the body, etc.

**déjà vu**: A strong desire to have the inner world connect with the real world seems to be the motivation. 

**front door**: public self; confidence; relationship with people in general; a vagina. 

**brother**: Oneself, or the denied part of self, meeting whatever is met in the dream...the anger or pleasure from memories.

**rain**: Depending on dream setting, depressed feelings or difficulties; tears and emotional release; return of feelings after a dry...unfeeling period; something that gives life or heals.


End file.
